Stephanie’s Story

 

In May of 2012 my husband and I made the decision to move from fertility treatment to adoption.  Needless to say this was not an easy decision but we felt it was the right decision for us.  We wanted a family and we were ready to take the next steps to make that happen.

We were excited but also nervous to start this new journey in our lives.  At that time we had not yet found IAS.  We were so overwhelmed with the whole process and we had no idea where to even begin.  We didn’t know where we should start, or, who we could trust.  We were eventually able to work our way through the process a little and ended up choosing a consultant to work with.  She sent us information on adoption and we read books to learn as much as we could about the process.  As helpful as this was, we still felt like we needed something else.  We needed a place to go where we could feel like we were not on this path all alone.  We needed emotional support!  This is when we started seeking out a support group and we found IAS.  We looked so forward to going to the adoption meeting each month.  We could talk to others who understood us and our emotions.  Things that were once foreign were now becoming comfortable.  We realized some of the feelings we were experiencing were “normal” and that was ok.  Some of our most frightening feelings about adoption were slowly becoming less frightening.  The adoption meetings were helping us work through our fears and we found great comfort in that.

One of the scariest things when we first started the process was the thought of having a relationship with the birth family.  The thought of meeting the birth family was not only intimidating, but, undesirable to us.  Only after we became educated and started seeing the benefits for your child, did we become open to the idea of having a relationship with the birth family.

In May of 2013 we were matched with a birthmother who initially did not want to have contact with us.  Although we had grown to accept, and even want, an open relationship with our birth family we decided not having contact was not a deal breaker for us.  We proceeded through the match thinking we would not meet the woman who would give us the greatest gift.  It was only in August, on our way down to the hospital to meet our son that we learned the birthmother agreed to meet us.  We were emotionally all over the place…excited, nervous, and scared.  But we also knew how wonderful it would be to get to know her.  We spent the better part of the next couple days with our son’s birthmother.  We are so grateful and feel blessed to have had that time with her!  It was only through the adoption meetings that our mindset changed and allowed us to be a part of such a beautiful thing.  We have not had any contact with our son’s birthmother since our time together at the hospital.  We send updates and photos to the adoption attorney hoping someday, when the time is right for her, she will be able to see them.  However it turns out, we are so thankful for those few short days we were able to share.  We will at least be able to tell our son what his birthmother was like and share our experience with him.

We are so thankful that we have IAS as a support group. A wonderful group of friends who understood our desire to have a relationship with our son’s birthmother, understood our fears and confusion on certain things, and welcomed us into the group without ever making us feel intimidated or embarrassed.  We truly cannot imagine navigating this journey without them!